Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Director to Helm 3D Animated Movie Based on Japan's Answers to the X-Men, Cyborg 009

In an online simul-streamed announcement, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Eden of the East director Kenji Kamiyama revealed that his next project is an update of Shintaro Inshonomori's team of fugitives sci-fi, Cyborg 009. The 3D film, titled 009 Re:Cyborg is scheduled to hit Japanese theaters in 2012.

Shotaro Ishinomori's seminal Cyborg 009 featured a team of people, kidnapped from across the globe for human experimentation, who escape and turn their new super powers against their former captors. Kamiyama's mentor, Ghost in the Shell movie director Mamoru Oshii, previously produced a 3D Cyborg 009 anime for Panasonic, while Kamiyama used the characters in a Pepsi promo short.

From Production I.G's announcement

Production I.G announces the production of a new animated feature film, 009 RE:CYBORG, based on the Cyborg 009 characters created by Shotaro Ishinomori and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, the world-acclaimed director of the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series and Eden of the East. The full-CG, stereoscopic 3D movie will be theatrically distributed in Japan in fall 2012 by Production I.G and T-Joy. Kenji Kamiyama himself is writing the script for the new film, which is going to be set in the present days. The main staff gathered around the project includes some of Japan’s top creators who have already collaborated with Kamiyama in his previous works. Gato Aso (Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit) is in charge of character design duties, the score will be composed by Kenji Kawai (Eden of the East), while the background art will be by Yusuke Takeda (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit). The animation is produced in collaboration with Sanzigen, one of Japan's up-and-coming CG studios.

009 RE:CYBORG is based on the Cyborg 009 characters created in 1964 by Japanese comic artist Shotaro Ishinomori. In the original comic, nine regular humans from different parts of the world are kidnapped by the evil Black Ghost organization, and transformed into cyborgs with astounding powers for the purpose of being used as weapons. The nine cyborgs rebel and start to fight against their creators, while struggling for their own self redemption. Ishinomori continued to write Cyborg 009 until 1985 in eight different story arcs. As the first superpowered hero team ever created in Japanese comics, Cyborg 009 proved to be a greatly influential forerunner for the generations to come, and received three animated TV series and three movie adaptations, distributed in many countries of the world.

ABOUT SHOTARO ISHINOMORI

Ishinomori (1938 - 1998) is considered one of the most representative and influential Japanese comic artists. His opera omnia, encompassing an astoundingly broad variety of themes, includes 770 works collected into 500 volumes for a total of 128,000 pages, making him the Guinnes World Record-holder for the "most comics published by one author." He received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, the Japan Cartoonists Association Award and the Minister of Education Award for his work. He also received the special Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize for his long lasting contributions to the manga medium.

ABOUT KENJI KAMIYAMA

Born in Saitama Prefecture on March 20, 1966. In 1985 he joined the background atelier Studio Fuga. A rare example of a background artist shifting to directorial roles, Kamiyama worked as animation director in Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) and wrote the script for Blood: The Last Vampire (2000), then debuted as director in MiniPato (2002). International attention eventually arrived with the TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002, Excellence Prize winner, Japan Media Arts Festival 2002) and its second season, Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd Gig (2004), followed by the feature-length Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society (2006, Jury Recommended Work at the 10th Japan Media Arts Festival, Jury Prize at the 21st Digital Content Grand Prix). In 2007, after almost 6 years spent in the world of Ghost in the Shell, Kamiyama directed the high-fantasy TV series Guardian of the Spirit (Jury Recommended Work at the 11th Japan Media Arts Festival) followed in 2009 by Eden of the East (2009, Best TV Animation at the 14th Animation Kobe), Kamiyama's highly anticipated fully original TV series. In 2006 he 'acted' as a superlivemation digital puppet in Mamoru Oshii's Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters, in the role of Manager Kamiyama. 2011 has seen the theatrical release of the stereoscopic 3D version of his multiple award-winning Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society, of which Kamiyama personally supervised the 3D conversion.

Do the legal restraints of comic book adaptation ownership extend to foreign countries?
Can't other countries adapt their own versions of properties like X-Men?
Can't they make an X-Men film and just set in Japan or something like that?
If they can't, then that's fucked up.
I want to see NEW X-Men adaptations.
I'm sick of the eleven-year-old Singer/Donner X-Men.
The Japanese could probably make an incredible X-Men movie.

There is a Madhouse (the studio that did Ninja Scroll) adaptation of X-Men. It's playing on G4 starting in a couple weeks
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2011/09/14-1/madhouses-x-men-anime-debuts-on-g4-in-october
It's alright, but not terribly inspired

That title is probably just an attempt to generate hits, but it's a lie.
I did notice some minor similarities back around 1980 when the show aired on UHF to the newer international version written by Claremont, not knowing the show's history.
I like these new designs (and not just the Black guy - who was problematic back in the eighties and before), and hope this turns out okay.

liquid / pebbles / debris /mechanical scrap levitates off the ground or hovers around someone as they charge up or give their revenge/how they came to be/how foolish someone is speech.
'cause we have not yet had enough of that.

you thought it might take months, but wow. So much sicker than he led on.
This seems like a Jim Henson kind of deal.
If he took better care of himself, didn't work so hard, and do regular checkups, this might have been caught sooner, and though we might have to wait for the next iwhatever, he'd still be around kicking and innovating.
RIP Steve Jobs.
He didn't invent any technology. Icon OS, Mice, Touchscreens, PDA, MP3 players, Tablets all came years before he did them best.
He instead designed technology. The first and best ever at designing technology, the way Versace and Ralph Lauren designed fashion, the way IM Pei and Frank LLoyd Wright designed houses.
Steve Jobs designed technology, he was the first to do it, and the best, and arguably noone will do it better.
When everyone thought inventing the better mouse trap was enough. He knew designing the better mousetrap was more important.

Hmm back in the '60'a this was in black-and-white before going color, and was on par with Kimba the White Lion, Gigantor, Marine Boy, Prince Planet, and other anime of its time.
I've seen other revamps of this series, but Kenji Kamiyama seems to have taken a different tack with his approach, and the this brief clip seems very promising, retaining the familiarity of the old and yet pushing the envelope of the new.

The most awesome scene is the suicide dive with the villain into a nuclear reactor. Though Cartoon Network never did air the last episode. Didn't make it to DVD either and no Japanese DVDs exist either.